What is up with Lenovo?

Thanks! That was exactly what i meant.

Hot in the summer and there are beaches everywhere

/derailed.

Back on topic, because this place is isolated, prices are kinda inflated here. A store was charing 2.2 grand for Alienware 17 with GTX 765M, and a few guys i know all bought some ASUS G series laptops with GTX 660M (weaker than my 755) for 2000$. Because of this, buying online is worth the wait.

 

IdeaPads have horrible warranty. Lenovo can copy how an Apple laptop looks but they aren't going to copy Apple's warranty service in the case of the IdeaPads.

 

Aside from the Yoga line i've noticed none of the Ideapads are meant to directly compete with the Macs. Maybe the upcoming Y50, but it's not an ideapad.

You can now go in the Dell section and flame them for making inspirons. Or flame HP for making pavillions or envies... or flame every other brand for making non-business laptops? I don't understand you.

 

I'm saying that too many companies are making laptops that look like Apple laptops but they seem to never copy the good warranty that Apple is known for in the consumer world.

 

In general PC manufacturers consumer warranties in general aren't good...you get what you paid for. Apple's warranty isn't too bad from a consumer perspective, but is it far from a comprehensive warranty through business/enterprise level. There's a reason why a mainstream, base spec enterprise Latitude is 1500-2000 dollars, warranty/support. You want better support? Better pony up the money.

 

According to the masses , Apple has the best warranty ever but some of us know better. For business support of course there are better options. I've dealt with business support vs consumer support and it made me think that I was dealing with two different companies.

 

I used to repair Apple computers at my last job. Yes in general Apple is pleasant to deal with, there are some quirks I wish they would deal with/fix, but that's not for me to say. The only time I've sent something personally off to Apple, it was great. My iPod 2 weeks old stop powering on, shipped it to Apple, got a new one 2 days later. Yes it probably is the best consumer warranty out, I've had pleasant experience with Alienware too.

 

Unless you give me 2000$ i'm not buying a premium laptop. The end.

Apples and alienwares may be worth their money's worth when it comes to warranties, but they still cost an arm and a leg. All the cheap consumer and business laptop's i've used over the years have served me well, why should i be convinced to spend more on premiums when basics get the job done?

Anyways, i derailed this thread too much.

 

8% of the computer owners are "masses"?

Probably these "masses" haven't looked into Thinkpad warranties.

 

Well that's your prerogative. I needed the best gaming laptop in 2011 when I sold my high end desktop, and I bought my Alienware for 1500 used. It was ~3000 configured new for the specification I had. Not everybody cares about money, I needed a large screen, most connectors, and best performance I could get my hands on, and I had a decent budget.

Why spend more for premium? Why do brands like Mercedes Benz, BMW, Bentley exist? Because people want them and are willing to pay for them. Do people NEED them? Probably not. But if you've ever owned a luxury car, you get treated noticeably better by the dealer (getting another luxury car loaner, XX for life, YY for free). It's the way the world works. If you want to only buy 1000 dollar laptop, nobody is stopping you, but for all that hardware you get, the warranty isn't as good. Oh and "premium" computers also have better build quality, most consumer laptops sub 1000 are built on a plastic chassis, vs my Alienware was built on a metal chassis. Alot more rigid and solid, albeit heavier. And yes, there was a time when ThinkPads were hand built.

 

Hand built? I don´t think we are in the dark age anymore arent we...

Maybe "hand assembled". But never hand-built. The parts always are mass-production.

 

I meant hand assembled, they weren't fabbing parts obviously.

 

True, but meanwhile the average customer has already left the market for phones, tablets & convertibles, thus leaving an increased business market share behind.

At the end it's just (semi-)professionals and gamers buying laptops, and they want to be catered.

 

You are forgetting students.

 

Most of them are either too uninterested and/or too misinformed to actually make a sensible computer decision. Most buy whatever the campus is selling (in my school's case, MBPs and Latitudes/Precisions), or go to the local Bestbuy to buy sub-par hardware (or a MBP/MBA), or buy whatever their friends/family tell them to buy (which will likely be more focused on fashion than function).

Speaking of which, one of my CS friends (who's pretty damn good at CS) is selling his '12 MBP and trying to get a Thinkpad W530.

 

Let's regard it as a temporary profession

 

The W530 is such an amazing machine. I can't wait to put a 1TB mSATA drive and a 1 TB 7mm SSD when I have the money

I also plan to put a Blu-ray Burner and upgrade the RAM to the max (32 GB) one day.

 

Agreed. Plus, i'm a student, gamer and power user...

My CS class consists of:
- Netbooks
- Sub 500$ laptops from Best Buy
- Macs
- ASUS ROG laptops (2k$+)

 

Most of my CS classes consist of:

MBPs
Latitudes and a few Precisions (those mostly found in engineering)
a lone Chromebook
a few Bestbuy/Walmart specials (Insprions, Satellites, a Pavilion or two, and an Acer)
one or two ROGs
a m14x
a T420, iirc
my X61t
an Elitebook 8570p
a Surface Pro
...and that's about all I can name

 

I guess those with netbooks must have more powerful computers at home? Unless this is a 1st year CS class when the programming assignments are still light.

 

Even in the third year (what I'm in), things are mostly lightweight. At least I haven't encountered any issues using a C2D L7500, which iirc are weaker than CPUs like the Atom and C/E series.

 

I suppose. I forgot to mention theres like maybe one Thinkpad (pretty sure it's a W530), and then there is me.

 

At then end of the day the W530 only gives you a few percent more battery life on full load. Compared to the W520 you pay with:
$300 - $500
-lacking eSata
-No numpad
-no awesome 7-row keyboard

Guess once which one I picked...

If a brand can "bind" people to their brand, they will likely still buy these products after they are no longer students. I guess that's also a reason why they offer discounts to schools to distribute their products. But then again; if the product is nothing special (like current Thinkpads) I guess that will work less as compared to something special (previous thinkpads).

 

Also different GPU (K2000M is a bit faster and has DisplayPort 1.2). Plus W520 has broken external video support: can't connect more than two external monitors to it, even with dock, need more => see USB video adapters

But otherwise yeah, W520 is a solid machine to this day.

 

Yes, but like the CPU, the GPU too is only marginally faster. It both GPU options on the W520 and the W530 have the same low memory bandwidth, just to mention something.

True, the lack of triple-screen support (while it was first claimed) is annoying, but how many people use that? I My guess is even less than those that use eSata. For three external displays you also need the full dock, while two external can be done w/o dock on both W520 and W530

 

Kepler >>>>>>>>>>>>>> Fermi, especially when overclocking.

2000M vs K2000M

 

Even with limited memory bandwidth K2000M still performs noticeably better than 2000M. I expect K2100M with GDDR5 (about god damn time) will perform even better.

 

Lenovo has totally lost touch with their userbase and are to busy going after the marketshare of those who buy disposable laptops. It's sad and I always thought that was what their ideapad line was for, but they seem to be doing the same with the thinkpad line.

 

If the majority of their userbase is the kind who buy disposable laptops then they are getting in touch with their userbase.

By userbase, you meant "power users", aka us?

 

Who buys a W series Thinkpad for overclocking? Seriously....

Yeah... 6500 3D marks (vantage) vs 5400; that's not such a great increase for a doubling in shader units and increase in clockfrequency. But ok, the GPU performance increase is already many times bigger than the CPU performance increase from W520 > W530, lol

 

Doubt someone who still uses T60 should be called "power user".

 

Heh...owning "the latest and greatest" hardware doesn't automatically turn someone into a power user either...

 

T60 with a UXGA Flexview I would view more of a power user than someone who buys a 229 Inspiron at Best Buy.

 

"Power user" is typically a user who uses the system long enough to get some habits. Nowadays, sheer accident perhaps, people in computer-related industries who use their systems long enough to get habits, are also paid well enough to be ready to overpay for them.

It's super easy for non-power user, to jump from PC to Mac, and from that to iPad, and from that to Smart TV, and end up with an Android smartphone, not losing any features along the way. Facebook and Twitter app is everywhere, and so is the browser. And its natural to choose the cheapest price, or the most shiny case, or whatever TV ad say is the best/most popular/most aluminum/whatever device of the week.

And what's wrong with Lenovo now, going back to the topic, is that they can't care less about the 'power users', who can type and who know how to press Ctrl+Break or Ctrl+Shift+F5 without looking at the keyboard, or value the ability to move cursor without touching screen or moving hands from the keyboard, and can afford to pay more to keep their habits.

The nastiest thing of it, is that they could have. Easily. Why W530 or W540 does not have an option for another keyboard layout, or, in W540 case, another, old, trackpoint setup? Even though Lenovo has enough resources to happily manufacture several keyboard layouts, at the same time!, with pretty much unique one for every laptop model, and significantly mechanically different Europe/US/UK ones too? And even enough resources to write ridiculous articles "Why you should give in" in its blog.

Changing the whole palmrest assembly part, to have different combinations of "no FP reader/no color sensor", "fp reader/no color sensor", "fp reader + color sensor" etc. is not an issue, despite that color sensor is too lousy for anyone who actually wants it, and unnecessary for the rest 99.9% of the users.

Charging +$250 for screen resolution upgrade, even though the panels probably differ by $30 retail to buy? No problem. Offer "old" keyboard/trackpoint layout with buttons, for +$250, and "power users" would be as happy campers as new kids in Beijing, who never used a Thinkpad before? Somehow an issue. Why?

 

I am quite sure a lot of said users would buy a new Thinkpad IF Lenovo just came with a new Thinkpad w/o messing up important things. So basicly the screen formfactor of the T60, keyboard layout of the *20, the newest hardware, no skimping on ports, no weird stuff like fixed RAM or battery.

I work regularly with people that have a T530; I have a W520. Whenever you need to type a weird symbol, I just enable numlock and type the appropriate alt code. Say alt+145 for æ. Well, that's not gonna work with a T530...

The only benefit of them having a T530 is that I can borrow their PSU, but they can't borrow mine

 

When it comes to thinkpads the T60 is legendary. I use one that is fitted with a T61 motherboard, nVidia FX570m graphics, Intel penryn X9000 core2 Extreme CPU, 8gb of ram and Intel SSD with a new manufactured 1200x1600 UXGA IPS flexview with LED backlight. This cost me more to build then most laptops you could buy from lenovo today and I'd go as far as to say that it specifically defines me as a "power user".


Those who buy the latest laptops aren't power users, they are just consumers.

 

1. First get i5 has more performance than X9000 ( Intel Core2 X9000 vs Core i5 560M). Also, power consumption, X9000 runs very hot and is not that effecient compared to Ivy bridge or Haswell.
2. 1920x1080 has more pixels than 1600x1200. Most panels these days are LED backlit.
3. 8GB DDR3 is a lot faster and cheaper than 8GB DDR2

I still use low end consumer laptops, does this make me any less of a power user? Nope. Bottom line, its not the hardware you have, but the things you do with it that make you a power user.

I know you hate the new Thinkpads and all, but you could have bought a T520 and called it a day.

 

Heh...a client of mine returned a brand new FHD W520 once he saw the Hydis LED panel that TuuS was referring to...:hi2:

 

I don't think our young friend here has ever experienced a UXGA/SXGA+ Flexview before, so pardon him.

 

What professions require lots of sequential capitalization? Someone who does a lot of SQL programming is the only think of.

 

It's also important in C/C++, too. And any language where constants are typically named with all-caps letters.

 

I've seen the 4:3 1440p panel in the X61t, it wasn't impressive, dim and bubbly.

 

Max resolution was 1400x1050, ignoring any aftermarket mods. And yeah, mine's has a few bubbles too, though they're out of the way and it's a common problem with the 1050p displays in that model.

 

Yeah, the "goop" thing was not one of the better moments for Hydis. Likely their worst, actually.

I just wish they would've stuck with the original panel revision used on X60T which was so much nicer...

As for the dimness...the youngest of these machines is five years old now, and the screens are CCFL-lit, so no surprise there.

 

Actually I bought a W510 with i7 quad core and FHD, and an 8740w Elitebook with 1920x1200 and i7cpu and I still prefer my T60 frankenpad.

 

Many legal documents in various districts - at least in the U.S. - have parts that are to be typed in caps only. No ifs ands or buts.

One of my best clients happens to be a law firm specializing in personal bankruptcy...

 

D'uh, but it's the fastest you can get on a T61 board.

In most applications other than watching videos, marginal vertical space is worth a lot more than marginal horizontal space. I would trade 1920x1080 for 1600x1200 any day of the week.

Yes, and it's a shame current products have degraded in such a way that one was to pick and choose between useless screen or relatively low performance.

Not really; a 15" 4:3 is 9" high. A 16:9 15.6" is 7.65" high. That's 15% less. Actually, a 14" 4:3 has more verticale space with 8.4"
16:9 15.6" is vertically even closer to 12" 4:3.
It's kinda strange that one now has to lug around a 15.6" monster to not get a decrease in vertical real estate compared to say a 12" X61.

 

I swapped an X60t SXGA+ panel + whole top section into my X61t (mine had the standard XGA, but excellent condition unit from TuuS from TPF, and the swap was a real pain in the rear). The X60t SXGA+ panels didn't go bubbly. It wasn't particularly dim, but remember that was the age of CCFL vs today's LED panels. I thought my panel was fine. I ended up selling my X61t for an Alienware M11x as I needed something that could be somewhat lightweight and could game in college.

 

One man's trash... I'd be happy to swap, free of charge, any 15"+ with 4:3 to 16:9 FHD with the same number of pixels and appropriately reduced physical dimensions. Especially if 1600x1200 is some dim old panel. And I don't watch videos on laptops at all (why suffer if a $1000 TVs is at least 20x+ screen area)

But really, in desktop mode, the difference becomes a lot less after re-positioning of Windows taskbar. On a 1600x1200, with Windows Taskbar horizontal, the remaining area is ~1600x1150, and with more than 3-4 open windows or documents can't see their names, just icons. On 1920x1080, with Windows Taskbar being vertical, the remaining are is 1750x1080, plenty of space to put "Quick launch" in another column as attached, and can read the names of the open windows and efficiently switch between them, can see date/time/day of week/taskbar icons etc. 1920x1200 would be even better, but it's really splitting hairs.

After all, 15.6" 16:9 is a lot more backpack, or economy airplane seat friendly, than 15.6" 4:3 would be if these were still manufactured. These 1.5" of difference matter. And if it's really about productivity, external monitors are larger, brighter, better, available in 16:10, can rotate 90 degrees, and can be connected in multiples.

 

Swap... ceteris paribus.

I have that on the side on 1600x1200, so I don't know where you would want to reposition it...

Doesn't matter for backpack. In the case of 4:3 the battery would be flush. If you want to go in economy class with a laptop; don't pick anything near 15" in the first place.

Can't lug around an external monitor